Dalwhinnie

Cottages and
Railway Line, Dalwhinnie

Dalwhinnie sits at the head of Loch Ericht where it meets Glen
Truim, at a maximum height of 1,180ft. This makes it a little higher than the
Highlands' officially highest village at
Tomintoul, 40 mountainous
miles to the north east. It remains, however, some way short of Scotland's
highest village, Wanlockhead, at 467m or
1,531ft.

While Dalwhinnie's altitude may not always gain the recognition it
deserves, Dalwhinnie
Distillery is by a few feet only the second highest distillery in Scotland.
This beautifully kept white-painted complex of buildings stand out for miles as
you approach Dalwhinnie on the A9, which bypassed the village in the late
1970s. Scotland's highest distillery is the little known Braeval Distillery, in
the Braes of Glenlivet a few miles beyond
Tomintoul.

Although Dalwhinnie's malting has been
done elsewhere since 1968, the distillery has thankfully kept its two
distinctive pagodas. Its origins date back to 1897, when it was briefly known,
misleadingly, as the Strathspey Distillery.
Dalwhinnie Distillery's
location and visibility mean that it is very popular with visitors, and it is a
good "first distillery" as the guides are knowledgable and enthusiastic and the
production elements are well laid out and relatively easy to understand.

Dalwhinnie came into being around an inn that from the early 1700s
served the needs of Highland cattle drovers en route to the market at
Crieff. On a single day in August
1723 over 1200 head of cattle passed through Dalwhinnie, in eight different
droves.

In 1729 Dalwhinnie was the point at which military road
construction teams working south from
Inverness via
Ruthven Barracks and
north from Dunkeld met,
completing the predecessor to today's A9. Another road was built to the north
west crossing the high level Corrieyairack pass from Laggan to
Fort Augustus, a route
abandoned as a road in the 1820s.

The Inverness and Perth Junction Railway arrived in Dalwhinnie in
1863, and the village still has its railway station today. This provides one of
several points of focus for this rather sparse and dispersed settlement. The
others are the distillery at
the north end of the village, the Inn at Loch Ericht at the south end of the
village, and the houses around the junction between the old A9 and the side
road to the railway station. In recent years Dalwhinnie has become the focus of
a widespread network of tunnels and dams providing hydro-electric power for the
Scottish grid, and forestry has also become in important activity in the
area.

South of Dalwhinnie the A9 climbs towards the summit of the Pass of
Drumochter, whose 1516ft or 432m summit marks the high point of the road's
passage through the Cairngorms. This height allows relatively easy access to
the mountains around Gael Charn.